This page intends to launch a debate on the meaning of socialism in contemporary society in a globalized world of aggressive competition in which workers' rights and the welfare state is under challenge in the name of economic competitiveness.

sábado, 10 de novembro de 2012

The recent history of Europe shows that the attempt to build a union backed only in monetary values ​​superimposed on the social, cultural and economic specifity is proving to be a failure.
The exciting project of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals converted into an area of ​​peace, development and prosperity is slipping into an asymmetric Europe, nationalist, in increasing social unrest by encouraging radicalism.
If we want to save the European project we must give you a new way to solidify the dream of a continental identity, creating convergences rather than divergences.
The European Union must be more than a common currency and the free movement of persons and goods by a coordinated management structure with extremely limited powers.
The European project to be viable must be more ambitious and build a Europe not only economic but also social and organizational.
It is essential to create a common identity representative of all the inhabitants of this vast geographic area, able not only to centralize decision-making power, but also the coordination and execution of social benefits that converged want, so that people can reach less developed a higher state of development without compromising the future of the most highly developed peoples. Without the existence of advantages for both players - EU and individual states - does not make sense any association.
To build momentum for standardizing a Europe tend to be symmetrical and not asymmetrical - because symmetry is only guarantor of stability - steps should be taken towards creating a social Europe, cultural and administrative, supported by a common military structure without subservience to any other world power.
One of the first pillars of a Social Europe must be the establishment of a European Minimum Wage based on the less developed economies and coexisting with the Minimum Wage of individual countries. This European Minimum wage should grow in a sustainable manner so as to approximate in a dilated form in time the labor income to be similar in the poorest and richest countries.
The salaries of employees of large European multinationals would tend to be equal in all countries of the European Union, evidently with some margin of flexibility tailored to the regional economies.
Should be created a central public administration, which is supported by a skeleton organization similar to what was done in the Roman Empire.
Should be defined the basic pillars of social support and this field should be created a European Health Service, a public school and a European social protection to the European workers.
The national unions should be merged into European trade unions for a more consistent defense of workers' interests.
In the last call should be defined a common official language coexist with the local languages ​​but what would be the point of convergence multiplicity of culture that contains geographic space.

terça-feira, 2 de outubro de 2012

We live today one of the most complex crises in recent history of mankind, in which values ​​previously considered innate and unshakable are jeopardized in the name of economic commitments that derive sovereignty to the nations.
There is broad consensus on human rights and main freedoms and guarantees of citizens. It is this sense of freedom and legitimate aspiration to a life of dignity that is called into question by the current international policies. We want the freedom to choose our destiny forgetting that a country can aspire to being truly free is to guarantee a set of basic needs among which stands basic sustenance.
A country that depends on foreign financial assistance is not an independent country. A people of a country whose financial aid depends on the investors' assessment is an enslaved people. An enslaved people have no rights.
To recover our sovereignty we must break the shackles that we cling to a foreign debt that continues to grow. The owners of money forces us more austerity to lend us more money so we can meet our basic needs, but the austerity sinks our economy forcing us to have to pay more to receive something, handing national strategic sectors international investors, giving them also our goods and our work product diluted in taxes that add up to tax everything that can be a source of tax revenue.
This is the path taken by the current Prime Minister of Portugal which is hostage to its own policy, which is no more than kneel before the markets, placing in position of 10 million hostage Portuguese who depend on the goodwill of markets not to starve to death.
Unfortunately, in the situation that we find ourselves at present and the immediate alternative to the policy of Pedro Passos Coelho threatens to be the "Day of not receiving", ie the day when there will not be a penny to pay salaries or pensions any other social benefit. Moreover, analyzing the results of the current policy, its continuation becomes inevitable in the medium term this fate.
It is therefore fundamental rethink the strategy governing the short / medium term, so that we can regain self-sufficiency that allows us not needing others to ensure that our people can see at least guaranteed with minimally acceptable principal tools for particularly in terms of food, energy, clothing, health and housing, a bit like Sérgio Godinho said "There is only freedom seriously when there is peace, bread, housing, health, education."
To achieve the reverse direction and escape from the abyss is mandatory first cut out of Lisbon Court and dive fearlessly in "deep Portugal", one that is not manifest in blogs, but will not contribute to the demonstrations with their vote for choice government. Knowing your feel, their motivations, their desires and aspirations, but also its limitations is essential to build a project settled in practice, the experience of day-to-defers, in "being Portuguese."
Do not just read the booklet written by others and adapt their content to a continent where it has no place. There have new horizons, realize new reality resulting from globalization, be endowed with the ability to see beyond, to be able to aspire to go where others have not, realizing that the board plays where the world economy is no longer the same as it was some time ago.
To build a new path is not enough rhetorical exercises or acts of faith which simply change the color of power or the power players. It is essential to the sensibility, to wit, lucidity, the exhaustive knowledge of reality to urgently draw up a workable strategy that will save us from the abyss and return us freedom and hope.
Insist on a playbook wrong just changing the layout of paragraphs is lost time. Claiming our identity, focusing on self-sufficiency, build new bridges with countries to whom we can be helpful, seem to me to be essential components for power mandar silence the money lords, give a lesson to Europe and the world, sowing the seeds freedom, tolerance, respect, peace, bread, health, housing, education and standard of peaceful coexistence among peoples.
We have the means to be able to have the courage to tell you the money, "thank you, but do not want to go there!"

sexta-feira, 17 de agosto de 2012

The weaknesses of our current social model exposed by the current economic crisis, pose a serious reflection on the functions of the state as a guarantor of social stability and balance, to allow the peaceful coexistence of various classes, rich and poor remedied.
The objective of a more just and caring can not pass by the fallacy that involves the utopia of egalitarianism. Everyone is born equal, but we are all born different, with different motivations and cravings. Trying to impose a single standard is like trying to impose on the rainbow one just color.
A more just and caring society should try to soften and blur the differences between those who have everything and those who have nothing in the logic of equal opportunities in access to a life of better quality, but do not promote laziness, ignorance and incompetence.
A more just and caring society should focus on creating a large middle class, capable of generating wealth to help the weak to have a better life than they would be designed while maintaining the focus on work, effort and expertise as a guarantee of rights and not just the simple fact that one exists, or is being possessed of an identity.
It is undeniable that the current social model is exhausted, unable to meet the needs of day-to-day, it is unfair and ineffective, serving those who should not serve, excluding those who ought to include.
The construction of any viable social model requires acceptance by all parties, or at least a significant majority is so-called social contract.
In preparing the new social contract is needed to determine what the boundaries of public assistance in their various fields of activity, ie what is the limit that whoever is willing to pay for those who do not pay to have something.
It is critical to define the limits of assistant functions of the state, and how much will cost, who will pay and the like will pay and what the mechanism for monitoring to be carried out with rigor and penalties on those who do not fulfill their obligation to be as payer, whether as beneficiary.
This border is to be measured taking into account the available resources and be adjustable to produce a rich period of time.
Promising to infinity when resources are finite only with the ambition to come to power, is to promise what is not will be able to comply, with the discredit and undermine the already fragile foundations of democracy, opening the door to new forms of totalitarianism.

terça-feira, 31 de julho de 2012

Our country has experienced a strike by doctors with significant membership but most likely a significant part of the population did not understand, which presented as a flag to defend the National Health Service
The strike is a right and a form of struggle usually provided in the constitution aimed at improving the working conditions of the professional group concerned and also in this case the main demand was the defense of medical careers.
We are currently witnessing the industrialization of medicine, the medical institution of a "low-cost" with the consequent devaluation of the medical procedure, a continuous and progressive process "operarialization" of the medicine, forgetting that the only professional who is responsible for making a diagnosis and establish a treatment is the doctor, to do a health system against this professional group does not seem to do much good for health.
The practice of medicine today is a complex activity requiring an extensive range of scientific knowledge by mature clinical practice in order to be able to decode a set of signs and symptoms in order to build a diagnostic capable of supporting a treatment to alleviate the suffering of the patient, a task delicate and of great responsibility where any misstep can lead to catastrophic results.
The knowledge dies with us and there is no mechanism of its intergenerational transmission loses are inevitably on the horizon of time. Defending medical careers is to ensure that the knowledge accumulated over thousands of years is not lost and is transmitted to new generations so as to be expanded and himself a source of new knowledge.
The right to health care is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular Article 25, one of the pillars of the state as we understand them today, democratic.
The right to health care as any other right is not innate, but is often the result of conquests wrested from irons and sacrifice of human lives, varying according to geographical and social community to which it relates and the prevailing values at the time.
With scientific medicine began in Greece with Hippocrates. Galen took in his teachings and gave them continuity in the beginning of the Christian era. In the Middle Ages to cure diseases was the task of religious orders, which made sense because at that time was mainly attributed to the divine cause diseases, but this time the leprosaria.
Hospitals appeared in continuity of support structures for pilgrims and this time the minor surgery practiced by barbers, since the tools used were for the two functions. At the turn of the first millennium the writings of Hippocrates gained new value and medicine began to be studied in universities. It was the Renaissance that medicine has gained a higher dimension and this season are many names that contributed to the breakthrough.
In the nineteenth century medicine has definitely entered the field of science. Medical assistance was previously a privilege reserved mainly for the wealthier classes had to be paid by them, may also have access to it through mutual associations with nature, which formed a basic social protection system of the participating members that entreajudavam in situations of illness, disability, widowhood unemployment, orphans, or dependent on the charitable action of the religious orders in the case of the most needy.
The industrial revolution and the perception of high costs associated with the disease of workers or to his death that created major losses of productivity were the basis of the first welfare systems.
The Health Service first began in Germany with Bismarck, with the mandatory health insurance for workers against the others, creating a model that still exists on other forms, in certain countries.
In the postwar period was established in Britain the model devised by Beveridge that led to the national health service in that country where the funding is no longer made based on securities to be made to pass directly through the general budget of the state through taxes .
The British model was adopted after April 25 to create our National Health Service, currently under fire due to cuts that want to streamline your name in the ration on their access to citizens.
The cloaked SNS rationing is twofold, the balance of public accounts and the creation of a new branch of business that really matters to the financial sector has invested millions in it. It's very different implement a health policy based on public interest or financial interest, although both have to be supported in a cost-benefit logic to ensure its sustainability.

domingo, 17 de junho de 2012

Greece will vote today. Greece will choose whether to continue with the foreign interference that forces an austerity atrocious that blindly crushing the middle class, which is the Greek people as pigs (PIGS), establishing a recessive spiral for which there is no light at the end of the tunnel or if want to go its way, running the risks of doing so.
In both the scales, the options are bad.
Did the Greeks will choose to die from the cure, or walk to a "suicide redeemer"?
Will they wait to be slaughtered by the markets slowly until they are stripped of all their property, or will they give a new lesson to the world and show that with the despair anyone did not play?
Will they wait until can no longer be bound outside the €, or will they anticipate this design?
I think that for the average citizen will not be very useful mantain the€ if you are not any euros in his wallet.
Only is justified to stay in a society or association if this remains advantageous. For too bad that the future is out of the €, in the € future it does not seem bright.
It may be that this time is not yet the Greeks tear the agreement with the Troika, but should not be long for this to happen.
Treat an entire people as corrupt and lazy forcing him to live in poverty does not seem a good calling card for Europe of the XXI century.
The History of Portugal and the rest of Europe was made without the €. The single currency could and should be an asset for the construction of a European identity. A single currency without a tax harmonization, social, wages, rights and duties is to build the house by the roof: a storm across the Atlantic is to throw everything away.

sábado, 14 de abril de 2012

The peoples of southern Europe, where it has to include France, much as she wants to escape to his fate and identity, have a cultural, biological, social and cultural heritaget that should unite them, rather than put them away. Our civilization has grown and developed in the Mediterranean basin, first in the Middle East, where the first civilizations were born, then in Egypt, to achieve its great explosion in the Greek civilization, which has brought important contributions both within the Arts, whether the level of Science, examples of which are Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Politics and brought us the Democracy. The Roman empire, who succeeded him, brought a model of administration, a language, a pattern that definitively marked the people who lived within its domain. The barbarian invasions from the center of Europe only brought the darkness in the Middle Age. It was the audacity and innovative spirit that led to the Portuguese that they put in small boats to discover new worlds outside Europe, scene of successive wars, saturated by a feudal warmongering that enslaved the people, that made our country discover his vocation, which is making more sense in this poor and humiliated forgotten corner of Europe . Also our neighbor Spain, had an equally large role in this discovery of new worlds, being responsible for the discovery of America and the iberization of Central America, much of South America and an increasing portion of the United States of America. We can proudly say that Iberian people opened new horizons, expanding the known world, exporting our culture, language and values ​​for various continents, giving rise to new countries, making the first real globalization. The French Revolution brought the people to power, projecting in an unique wayt he ideals of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, well loved by of the world Left and that the Right never had the courage to openly oppose, although it does so in a covert way. And Germany? The German arrogance brought to the world two bloody conflicts that ever left them humiliated and destroyed, a lesson they should never forget. It was precisely the devastating effect of World War II that led to the creation of a European community, in way to could serve as a buffer to any expansionist and bellicose desire capable to bring back the pain of the war once more to this continent. Today the European Union is divided into PIIGS not PIIGS. I think it is time for PIIGS raise his head, honor their past and make a fist on the table - and if I need a kick - in a Europe that rejects them, to unite around a common plan which made valid again the European project . It is my conviction that if Latin countries of southern Europe ( PIIGS +France) ara acapable of organize collectively and acting together, can act as a new cultural, economic and military capacity giant, to assert itself independently in a globalized world, with ability to survive of an utopian Europe, germanocentric and increasingly nationalist, sinking day by day.

He spent a year since the 12M, the demonstration of portuguese indignados, and in that time wat has changed? The Right came to power!In Portugal and Spain! How can the youth revolt, which envolved the whole society and not just precarious workers has become a massive vote on the Right, who defends the precarity, deconstructs the wellfarel state, increasing the gap between the very rich and very poor and leaves the strategic sectors in the hands of a faceless and soulless capitalism ? Just because the Left has failed to convince almost no one. But why the Left has failed to convince hardly anyone? Because the Left has encysted in a cycle of decadance! The Left is no longer a set of values, an ideology, to become a caste of good speakers who move in the power, using a benefits package mirroring those assigned to a feudal Right, but better moving in the proximity between public and private interests.The Left is not more a rational Left to become a libertarian Left, where freedom is confused with anarchy and irrationality replaced the equilibrium in which the duties have been replaced exclusively para rights.

A Left without rules, consumerist , opportunistic and hypocritical does not work, or rather, only works as there are those who pay for the ramblings of those who took power with the promise to promote the realization of the wishes of a headless body who use the vote as if they were watching a football game! Of course, the Right which is rulling us will fall and the Left wiil return to power.I hope that during this time the Left can understand why she failed, understand the reality of a world inevitably globalized, to be sober, ecological, sustentable, to promote individual happiness by promoting collective happiness, to be an example to be able to enforce the rules, be humanist without falling into the facilitisme, be fraternal without losing authority, and without forgetting that the world is composed of human beings who have feelings, individual desires and affections.

domingo, 29 de janeiro de 2012

Do not fret only: Dare! Have Ambition!Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: a Utopia, a lie or a solution? to Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 18:28

Stéphane Hessel wrote a book which calls for outrage against this type of society that encourages the exploitation of man by increasing the gap between the richest and the poorest. It is necessary to find a new model of distribution of wealth that privilege an increment of large middle class able to sustain a Welfare State that protects a number that if you want less and less needy people and to make a relentless fight against the handful of very rich that uses alllegal expedients to evade taxes.It is usual to hear that the state's that we are is fault of the politicians. In Democracy politicians are elected by the people and if we Think they ares incompetent is not enough just outrage. It is necessary to intervene civically, contributing to the replacement of politics by other more capable. Is not enough require the politicians to solve our problems with ad hoc gatherings of angry, occupation of squares and folklore. It is necessary to think, reflect, be informed, discuss problems in order to find innovative solutions that are sustainable, in order to effectively solve a problem that devastates the rights won through sweat and blood for several generations since the industrial revolution.The state of Social Welfare that we have today in Western societies is not innate, but a benefit gained that only exists while it is preserved and to be preserved need to be viable in a world with more than 7 billion people who claim the same rights that we have and what we want for our children.It is legitimate aim for the impossible, because much of what we have today results from ambition and dream of some who often paid with their lives the utopia of a more just and fraternal world and that could make the impossible possible, but after that much work is needed, persistence, ability to cope with the vicissitudes of an innovative route to make feasible the legitimate ambition to live a better world.Do not just an inconsequential and comfortable indignation. You need to step forward to take advantage of that 1 percent inspiration that only comes to fruition with 99 percent perspiration. However to get 1 percent of inspiration is sometimes also necessary to hear 99 percent of unconnected ideas and know-how filtering in order to use the wheat that is hidden in the midst of so much chaff.Revolutions can be easy to do, but to make them bear fruit and contribute to improving the standard of living is already much more complicated and laborious. Sterile revolutions usually end in dictatorships, wars in the middle, as with the French Revolution gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte, with the consequences we know.

sábado, 28 de janeiro de 2012

Self-instituted slaverySocialism for the Twenty-First Century: a Utopia, a lie or a Solution?, Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 11:50

A song of Portuguese band "Deolinda" ("so syilly I'am" - creating the "sillygeneration" ) launched the theme for discussion of a reality that devastates the Portuguese youth and in general all the youth of the Western world. An increasingly educated generation who will collecting academic titles schemes is paradoxically confronted with the most demanding work and low paid that led to the outburst "to be a slave is to be studied."The self-proclaimed "silly generation" is the daughter of the generation that had the best quality of life in living memory and had the opportunity to educate their children and give them the best academic qualifications, they were expecting a reserved quality of life even higher than his, which in turn was already better than their parents.For how cruel can be our destination, we were we gave ourselves the knot of the rope that now arises about ready to stretch our necks if we do not accept being treated as commodities by the bosses in of the money.By replacing the traditional values by ​​others that overvalue material goods, the marks "premium", the latest technology, fashion, appearance, and the futility superfluous, making life a competition without rules to achieve that the best agencies marketers want us to enforce, subvert the backbone of the principles that underpin the basic pillars of a solidary society. Nowadays, people are worth not what they are, but what they seem, in an escalation of consumerism that seems to justify everything. The current society has lost the thread of a spiritual component that shaped a set of behaviors, turning only to the immediate and easy modeling of the associated laws governing courts, gave the glow ability to exploit man by man himself.The greed of multinational corporations and the banking system led to a spiral of consumption of goods or services, unreasonably depleting our borrowing capacity.To increase sales volume and consequent increase in dividends, big business companies battle everyday in search of ever better products and lower costs at a time.To achieve lower prices for products with more quality the solution is on the one hand, by increasing the scale of production, achieved by building ever larger economic groups through mergers and acquisitions between companies and passes by on the other hand for decreased labor costs achieved by reducing the number of employees and their salaries. We have so many more copies thereof produced by fewer workers who earn smaller salaries, which contributed greatly to the relocation of production achieved in countries dominated by the cheap labor.With globalization, the major economic groups achieved something great for the consumer, now have access to the latest gadgets of sophisticated technology at an affordable cost, simply by comparing what they cost and what cost equivalent articles 10 years ago (mobile phones, TV , laptops, etc.).Only this small wonder is a catch: the consumer consumes only if you have to get money and the incurring of costs, many workers were thrown into unemployment and those who work are forced to work in ever more precarious.To meet their interests as consumers, the occidentals have condemned their jobs, offering them to people in a quasi-slavery regimen, fill the shelves of our supermarkets with quality products at prices from China, consuming them without caring conditions in which they were produced. Maybe the toys we give our children for Christmas were made by children the same age who work long hours as true adults, but this does not seem to harass our consciousness ... If nothing is done to the contrary, the Europeans will remain only on austerity over austerity and will soon be so poor that they have the money to buy the products that got used, not even to have access to quality public services taken for granted for decades and inalienable. It is evident that a planet with 7 billion people, the money that begins to appear in developing countries must come from somewhere and capitalization of new economies must come from the disinvestment of the old economies. Currently only the peripheral countries are paying the bill of globalization, but it will eventually reach the most industrialized countries, sooner or later. To avoid solutions such as 1939/1945 is urgent to create a new paradigm of society that allows the satisfaction of natural desires of life with a quality that allows the technology and satisfying the legitimate aspirations of those who want to advance in their professional life, opening way to new horizons of science has much to hide, but this is done in a more harmonious and balanced with the resources of the planet.

Europe with fire and sword ... Coming soon to a TV near you?Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: a Utopia, a lie or a Solution?, Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 13:01

With the bankruptcy of Greece in disguise, the imminent collapse of Portugal, the market pressure on Italy and Spain, translated into interest rates to rise gradually, Europe is being swept into a uncontrolled whirl that threats to swallow us at any time.The attempt to bring Europe to march to the beat of the German compasse, is to leave behind the peripheral countries who are forced to implement austerity over austerity to try to put on the public accounts, an exercise that does not result more than the forced impoverishment of the middle classes of these countries, attacked by the rulers to pay bills that continue to grow.The demonization of the civil servant is the first step in a strategy that aims to destroy the Welfare State, reduce labor costs and workers' rights in an unprecedented setback in the back at the beginning of the industrial revolution.Initially Europe wants to get rid of the Greeks to save Greece, then you will want to get rid of Greece to save Europe, as will hapen with Portugal, his secular disgrace fellow.Think the Germans and the French that the exemplary punishment of the PIGS safely put their standard of living and their social rights and think that their economies are strong enough to be immune to the attacks of the markets, but this is just an illusion because the forced impoverishment of middle class of the peripheral countries will lead to an exodus of more qualified professionals to richer countries that will eventually compete with the local workers, creating conditions for a devaluation of work in these countries, providing means for their contries enterprises to become more competitive market level. On the other hand, if the loss of purchasing power of the PIGS will decrease the volume of imports from developing countries relative to Germany and France, on the other side will also reduce imports of Chinese products, which exportationenhances the importation in China of German luxury products with negative effects on the balance of payments on Germany / China.In the countries intervened, imposing more austerity leaves only the choice between misery and misery, bringing despair to the people that will provide an environment conducive to widespread violent opposition, especially the middle class with a deceased proletarianized, forcibly strong inducer of revolutions who knows how to start, but nobody knows how they ends, and that similar patterns could reach a civil war which inevitably culminate in the totalitarian regimes of exaggerated nationalism and conflicts between countries and ethnic groups.If we look at history confirms that Germany has already led to two world wars and when Germanny will be subjected to the owners of capital receipts that are now imposed on peripheral countries, may come up xenophobic sentiments that we have seen recently in the former Yugoslavia, in account the increasing migrant population in the two most developed European economies, especially if those that Sarkozy has called "scum" revolt and re-ignite the streets of major cities in Europe.A conflict in Europe is a breeding ground for a new intervention that the U.S. redeeming sag to their interests as they did in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, this intervention will be paid to the reconstruction made by European and American companies is both a dark solution for a crowded planet.Only a new Europe, built on solidarity, which treats equally all its inhabitants, with a common administration, a common foreign policy, a common official language, a military common castrating free cord that subjugates the interests U.S., only that Europe will be able to tap your foot to the U.S. (and the emerging powers) and defend the interest of Europeans.The Germans must realize that only by defending Europe as it was originally thought is that they can defend their interests in particular by extending the security perimeter of its borders, otherwise again be more easily isolated and vulnerable to external threats.The European solution to the crisis must be primarily political, taken by people with ability to historical and social context, with overall strategic vision, with ability to raise awareness so that they do not affect the immediate interests over the interests of future and lasting an ambitious project to create a space of prosperity, tolerance and peace in a region of the world rich in historical and scientific, but also the home of the largest and bloodiest wars that ravaged the planet.

Mobilising the European socialist parties in order to find an effective solution to the crisis, both within and outside EuropeSocialism for the Twenty-First Century: a Utopia, a lie or a Solution?, Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 11:22

The current economic crisis has already been extensively studied and discussed its causes. Factors such indebtedness motivated by the greed of easy money promoting banking credits for everything and anything, the relocation of jobs to countries with rudimentary standards of social protection, the complacency of political power and many other factors contributed to an easy diagnosis to the point where we are and to make us suspect that the worst days lie ahead.One would expect a crisis that makes life difficult for workers, erodes the Welfare State, would lead citizens to seek the support of leftist parties, but, paradoxically, is that there is a rise in the whole of Europe right-wing parties and a "sweep" of the general European Socialist Parties, which ultimately bear the burden of blame for the state we have reached.Revenues from international law to resolve the political crisis based on more and more austerity, reducing public spending and shrinking the Welfare State to a residual sample of what was until very recently.Greece is an example and lab tests that show that the solutions suggested by the ideologues in the payed by big business groups to solve the crisis only add crisis to crisis, increasing the number of unemployed workers, reduced consumption, a slowing economy, the contracting GDP. The miraculous solution to solve the chronic deficits of the public accounts of the states in distress (in which one has to include the United States ...) is to increase exports ... Therefore, Portugal has to increase exports, Greece has to increaseexports, Ireland needs to increase exports, the United States to increase exports, etc ...Does the planet's resources can bear so great a burden of increased exports to GDP increased to balance the public accounts of the countries affected?And exporting to whom? For emerging countries that have social costs of production much lower than ours?In a European Union increasingly disunited and individualistic places to change course.Not only is the Socialist Party of Portugal, which needs to initiate a new cycle, but all European Socialist Parties that must initiate a reflection on how it was possible to reach this state and especially how we can overcome this crisis while maintaining a cohesive society, which respects the rights of workers.For new situations new responses are required. It is true that the ultra-liberal solution will only aggravate the difficulties of Europeans, increasing the intra-state and between states disparities, it is also true that the European Socialists can only aspire to be part of the solution if they dare to innovative solutions.I do not understand that makes sense to move towards self-enslaved creating unemployment in order to pay less to those who work, which in turn will have to work longer hours and more years they would lack a layer bound to highly qualified youth with their parents.I do not think also that we can continue to fill the commercial areas of low-cost products and ignore the social costs of these products.You have to disassemble the whole neo-liberal model sponsored by the Socialists who were attracted to Blair's Third Way, it is necessary to go back to the sixties and find out why the human society planned for the year 2000 did not materialize.Just doing a retrospective analysis of what should have been but was not, and only returned to the root of the problem, we can construct a path that allows to build a caring society that respects workers, which respects human dignity, which will be based on ethics and whose aim is the welfare of ordinary citizens and not just the profit of a few.We'll probably have to rethink our current standard of welfare based on consumption, one or two steps down, but in return gaining more free time and other quality of life that dispenses the latest gadgets fashion, status symbols, the premium brands, but we ensure a healthy social life.If we can not, among the Socialists and Democrats, to find the magic formula that will catch the cycle of self-destruction that we started, we will be co-responsible for a belician implosion of the European Union, equivalent to what happened in 1939.

And the Euro, man?Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: a Utopia, a lie or a Solution?, Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 02:15

The creation of the single European currency in 1999 and formalized in 2002, materialized seemed a big step forward in European economic integration and a factor of cohesion that would allow a harmonization of the standard of living of the inhabitants of the euro area.The most optimistic of using the new currency were soon overshadowed by the onset of rapid inflation in which prices of some 100 PT escudos were "equivalent" to 1 or 50 euro cents to 50 PT centavos, doubling their value (while salaries have remained the same).The stability of the single currency meant a great deal of control the public deficit by the acceding countries, preventing the artificial control promoted by the devaluation of the currency.The tighter control of budgets led to more restrictive policies by governments and when it was not possible, some countries resorted to "skills" to reach the values ​​imposed by Brussels.The recent global economic crisis with an epicenter in New York pressed budgets already in the "red" and the practical result is that the weaker economies of the eurozone could not stand the pace imposed by his sisters most articulate.Consecutively Europe was dropping the weakest links, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.Implemented slaughter of Portugal, the "following person" is our nearby Spain, like Portugal, stated that most protected compared to the former victim ...The countries of northern and southern countries have their own ways of living in society: more stringent in the north, more "improvised" in the south.Want to fine tune the economy of the countries of the South by German diapason may be an overly optimistic desire for a currency that seems less and less in the European Union increasingly disunited in that until some are "Real Finns" and others are not.Perhaps Spain will hold on, but if this is likely to fall another country will follow the domino pre-programmed: Italy?Maybe not much later that the Euro is just the Franc / Mark and then just the Mark ...It is quite possible that on the trail ahead of the bureaucrats in Brussels led by Germany will eventually delete Portugaland the related, from his currency.What's the solution?The solution is in sight that the measures proposed by the IMF / EU to be effective and allow a recovery in the economy, which brings up some questions inevitably associated with the recession austerity policies, policies that seem to be more targeted to ensure the return of investment to allow the economic recovery of the interventionist state.This solution would turn our life around and pursue a Germany that makes us ever farther back, a plan supported by a force of faith that sometimes in surprising and has already raised several times throughout history. An alternative solution that may not be excluded, it would be the creation of a separate currency for the countries of the south, with an appreciation / depreciation controlled by Brussels, a European Euro of the second species but that would adapt better to the reality of the countries of South .Analyzing the behavior of markets, individualism of the various states of the European Union, the actions of their leaders and the vices of our economy, I fear that sooner or later we wil be forced to return to PT Escudo, to the rural Portugal without future, where one is born in order to emigrate. We probably have as partners Greece and perhaps other PIGS ...and a return to national currencies, isolating Germany (and maybe France or Britain).Does then the Euro / Mark still has not been completely overshadowed by another shining star ever stronger in the east?